The Gutter Pipe Story

So I was home one day almost a couple months ago and had by back door open but the screen door closed. A thunderstorm came up and while it was raining, I noticed that water was flooding in over the screen door. So the next time I was at the complex office, I let them know that I thought my gutter needed to be cleaned. And then I didn't think of it anymore...

Until about a month later, as I was potting more plants and herbs on my back porch, I noted a foul smell. I looked around to make sure little doggies hadn't left any presents anywhere and there were none. Then I noted the gutter- there is a downspout that has a small elbow draining ( theoretically) onto my porch. The bottom looked stopped up with leaves. So I got a stick and dug around and found that the downspout really was quite full- not just the elbow. So I sent in an email request.

Three days later... we had major thunderstorms and yet again, I was home and the back porch door became a water fall. This time I called up to the office and they said they would send someone out after it quit raining. So about 45 mins later, the maintenance man came to investigate. He decided he didn't want to cut the elbow even though he knew the downspout was occluded at least a foot up the straight part. Because it had just rained, the downspout was full all the way up to the top ( two stories) and was leaking out the top elbow. So he decided to get a plumber's snake and try to pull out the blockage. The snake proceeded to get stuck in the blockage. The downspout came loose from the top elbow, and the bottom elbow got totally trashed as he tried to get the snake loose. After much pulling, finally all the dead debris came loose as did a whoose of water and now my downspout works again. The maintenance man thought it probably had been blocked for some time. My porch still looks a wreck, but the maintenance peeps are supposedly coming back in the next few days to hose it off for me.